Daily Inspiration by Dr. Jerry Burton

There Is More to This Than Meets the Eye!

“But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again: and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be children of the highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. 36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” Luke 6.35-36

Today I find myself looking once again at some words from the lips of Jesus that are a challenge. Take time to go back and read vs. 20-34. They set the stage for the words of Jesus here. We find ourselves confronted with challenges that we are not capable of accomplishing in the flesh. Perhaps at this point we should ask ourselves: “Do I want to live and act just like the world or am I willing to live the way Jesus tells me to live in these verses?”

Let’s unpack these words: “love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again … ” Jesus is asking us to do something that is diametrically opposed to what our flesh is telling us to do. WHY, we ask ourselves, would anyone want to do that? Jesus doesn’t leave that question unanswered: “… your reward shall be great, and ye shall be children of the highest … ” Here is the secret. He wants us to live like we are HIS children and not children of the world.

How can we learn to do that? “ … for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.” He is asking us to display unconditional love to people who will never give it in return and who will wonder why we are doing it. The answer is because our Heavenly Father asked us to do it.

We will learn this attribute of loving like God loves by watching how He loves others who have nothing to offer Him in return. “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” We know that extending mercy to someone is to give them not what they deserve, but what they do not deserve. How different would our lives be if we would adopt this kind of lifestyle? Just wondering! Just my thoughts …